Roman Catholics vote for Obama – Bishops blast him

Roman Catholic Bishops meeting this week in Baltimore called out the new Democratic administration.

Their post-election summit represents a sharp divide with Roman Catholic voters. Here’s the treatment in today’s Washington Post, from religion writer Anthony Stevens-Arroyo.

They accused President-elect Barack Obama and vice-president Joe Biden (a practicing Catholic) of pursuing “aggressively pro-abortion policies” that amount to “an attack on the church.”

Northeastern Pennsylvania is the most Catholic part of the United States. According to local experts, 80 percent of the population in the area around Scranton and Wilkes Barre identifies itself as Catholic. The region voted 63%-37% for Barack Obama and the Democrats on Nov. 4.

The Bishops, obviously, see this very differently. Here’s the treatment today from Fox News.

“I cannot have a vice president-elect coming to Scranton to say he’s learned his values there when those values are utterly against the teachings of the Catholic Church,” [Bishop Joseph] Martino said. The Obama-Biden press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Diocese of Kansas City in Kansas said politicians “can’t check your principles at the door of the legislature.”

Naumann has said repeatedly that Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic Democrat who supports abortion rights, should stop taking Holy Communion until she changes her stance.

“They cannot call themselves Catholic when they violate such a core belief as the dignity of the unborn,” Naumann said Tuesday.

This same clergy-laymember divide affects the heavily Roman Catholic North Country. Bishop Robert Cunningham attended this week’s conference in Baltimore. But much of his region — including St. Lawrence County, where the Diocese of Ogdensburg is headquartered — voted for Barack Obama.

Tags: religion